


The Sound of You

by chamel



Series: You Left Me Under Your Spell: A Collection of CaraDin Short Stories [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Heartache, Jealousy, Kissing, Miscommunication, Post-Season/Series 01, Self-Denial, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel
Summary: She watched as he walked over to Karga’s table and slid into one of the chairs, picking up the kid and placing him on another. The bartender droid bustled over and took his order. They would talk for a spell while the kid ate, and the Mandalorian would pick up a new puck. Job secured, their visitors would leave the cantina again, off to refuel and resupply. Cara knew she wouldn’t see them again until later that evening, when he’d knock on the door of her small apartment. She could feel her heart speeding up just thinking about it, even though they’d done this dance around each other at least a dozen times by now. Ok, it was actually 11, before today. Not that she was counting.(Din asks for Cara's help with something she's less than enthusiastic about, but she helps him anyway because what else are friends for?)
Relationships: Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: You Left Me Under Your Spell: A Collection of CaraDin Short Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680589
Comments: 23
Kudos: 161





	The Sound of You

**Author's Note:**

> We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this one-shot that got inside my head and took over my life this week. 
> 
> This is unrelated to my other Cara/Din stories.
> 
> Title/lyrics/inspiration from the Band of Skulls song "Sound of You"

_See you in the morning light_  
_I get a sense of wonder_  
_Find me in the evening time_  
_Before I drag you down_

He was back again, like clockwork. Every 30 days, give or take a day or two. Once it was 40, and she had to admit she’d spent seven or eight days more worried than she had a right to be. When he’d arrived the Razor Crest had been leaking fuel and he’d been favoring his right leg, but he refused to get it looked at. Nor would he tell them about what he’d been up to that had resulted in so much trouble. The kid, at least, had seemed no worse for the wear.

This time he seemed uninjured when he strode into Greef’s cantina, kid waddling beside him. It was early and Cara didn’t really know why she was awake except perhaps to see them standing in the door, the bright morning sunlight streaming around them. He glanced around the room, as he always did, taking in the cantina’s patrons. His gaze lingered on her for an extra half-second—as it always did—and she felt their eyes meet despite his obstructing visor. Her traitorous heart skipped a beat, as it always did.

She watched as he walked over to Karga’s table and slid into one of the chairs, picking up the kid and placing him on another. The bartender droid bustled over and took his order. They would talk for a spell while the kid ate, and the Mandalorian would pick up a new puck. Job secured, their visitors would leave the cantina again, off to refuel and resupply. Cara knew she wouldn’t see them again until later that evening, when he’d knock on the door of her small apartment. She could feel her heart speeding up just thinking about it, even though they’d done this dance around each other at least a dozen times by now. Ok, it was actually 11, before today. Not that she was counting.

It was all so well-trodden that when he got up and turned toward her instead of the door, she wondered if she was dreaming. She found herself paralyzed as he walked across the cantina to where she sat in a back corner. He stopped before her table and stared down at her; all she could do was stare back up at him.

“Cara.”

“Mando.”

“I was thinking…” he drawled, head tilted ever-so-slightly. He paused, as if waiting for her to jump in, but when she didn’t he continued. “I could use your help today.”

“With what?”

He shrugged like he didn’t actually know what he wanted her help for. “I’m trying to pick up a gift. For a friend.”

“For a girl?” she asked nonchalantly, immediately regretting it. Underneath the table her hand gripped her knee hard, her knuckles turning white. Why did this departure from routine fluster her so much?

“Yes.”

“Important to you?”

“Yes.”

Cara suddenly felt ill. She looked down down at the table and swallowed hard against her rising nausea. Twisting her lips into a mirthless smirk, she looked back up at him. “Sorry, I have plans today. Maybe tomorrow.”

She knew, of course, that he never stayed more than the one night. He’d be gone the next morning, and she wouldn’t have to help him pick out a gift for someone who wasn’t her. It was better for everyone. He gave a short nod and turned to leave.

“See you tonight, Mando,” she said to his back. He paused for only a moment before continuing back across the cantina to where the kid sat with Greef.

_Don't bring your courage down_  
_Not even for a moment_  
_I could wait a million years_  
_To be the one you hold_

He was late, and for a few, brief moments she thought he wasn’t coming. But then she heard his unmistakable soft knock, sending her heart a-flutter. She forced herself to take her time as she sauntered over to the door. He deserved to be made to wait, after what he pulled today. She yanked open the door, harder than she intended, her irritation spilling out. He stood silently on the other side, as expected. Without a word she turned her back on him and walked back into the room, leaving the door open behind her. Was she swinging her hips just a little bit more than usual, as if daring him to consider what he was missing? Maybe she was.

She heard the door click shut behind her and the soft sound of his footfalls on the thin carpet. Grabbing the bottle of liquor off the table, she took a long swig as she turned back toward him. Something about his posture seemed tenser than usual somehow; she wondered if it had something to do with his mystery woman.

“No fair starting without me,” he accused when he saw the dent she had put in it already. It was clearly supposed to be a joke, but she thought she heard a note of real hurt in his voice. It was, after all, not the way they did this. She had to stop herself from apologizing. He brought this on himself.

Instead she shrugged. “Rough day.”

She raised the bottle to her mouth to take another draw of it, but he crossed the remaining distance between them surprisingly quickly and put his hand on her arm before she could tilt it back. Wordlessly, he pulled on her arm and she followed him toward the center of the room. No words were needed for this part; it had become routine by now. When they reached the designated spot—designated only by the sense that it was the right place—he stopped and turned away from her. She hesitated only for a second before she turned her back to him.

Leaning back was like a trust fall. He could have moved away and she wouldn’t know until she had fallen on her ass, but he never would. Their backs joined together and she felt the familiar press of his beskar against her shoulder blades. Slowly, their knees bent and they descended until they were sitting on the ground. She felt him reach up and pull his helmet off, which was, in fact, the ultimate trust fall. Placing the bottle on the ground beside them, she leaned her head back until it connected with his. She closed her eyes at the contact and breathed deeply. He had picked up the bottle and his swallows made his head bob every so slightly, the motion so familiar to her by now.

The only thing that varied about these visits was the amount of talking they did. Sometimes he’d be taciturn, and other times voluble. Tonight seemed like it might be a night for sitting quietly. He passed the bottle back to her and she took a long pull, feeling the harsh liquor burn down her esophagus. She couldn’t tell him that she’d started early because she wanted the liquid courage.

“So,” she said, breaking the silence after a while, “tell me about this girl, Din.”

At first she didn’t know if he would. He put his hand out for the bottle and she handed it to him, feeling him drink again. “Well… she’s really smart, and beautiful, and incredibly strong.”

The words stung less than the tone of his voice. Unimpeded by the helmet, she could hear every inflection, and she knew them all by now. The adoration in his voice was obvious.

“Can she beat your ass into the ground?” she asked, her voice full of bravado that she didn’t really feel.

“She can.”

“Is she stronger than me?” The words came out less combative and more overwrought than she had intended.

“No,” he admitted without elaborating.

A strange feeling of victory surged through her, as if she’d won a battle that the other person didn’t even know she was fighting. Or maybe she did. Cara wondered if Din ever spoke of her to this other woman, and what he said.

“How did you meet her?”

Din drank again. “On some backwater planet. I was trying to lay low for a bit. She helped me out a few times. We became friends.”

“Just friends?” Cara asked, and immediately hated herself for it. Who was she to ask, and what was that obnoxious tremor doing in her voice?

He didn’t reply right away and suddenly she felt like something she never really had was slipping away from her. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

The surge of triumph she had expected to feel was lost in the obvious regret in his voice. “But you’d like to be more,” she whispered back, pressing her luck.

Silence filled the room again. She felt him inhale heavily against her back. Just when she thought he wouldn’t answer, he grumbled, “I don’t want really want to talk about this anymore.”

That was fair, she didn’t really want to talk about it either, even though she had been the one who brought it up. The answer was obvious, though, and it sent pain lancing through her chest. _This_ was why she didn’t get involved with people. She hadn’t intended to this time, either. He had feelings for this woman. Did she have feelings for him? Was Cara a horrible person for hoping that she would shoot him down when he eventually told her, and then he’d come back to Nevarro, and Cara would pick up the pieces? She knew she was. Just because he’d just broken her heart without knowing it, didn’t mean he deserved to have his broken. She pushed the offensive thoughts out of her head. It might take a while, but she could be happy for him. Maybe. Eventually.

He took a long drink, then passed her the bottle, which she gladly accepted. She wondered if something would change, now, some disruption that would break the endless loop they seemed to be stuck in. The thought worried her. As boring as the loop could be, it was comfortable, and she didn’t want to find out if breaking it meant never seeing him again. What were they doing here, anyway? Every visit, always the same. At once she never felt so close to someone, and so far away. After a minute or so he leaned his head back to contact hers again and she felt the tension leave her shoulders at the familiar gesture. They sat in comfortable silence, then, passing the bottle back and forth. It was still a third full by the time he pulled away from her and let cool air snake up her back. She shivered, even though it wasn’t particularly cold in the room.

“I should get back so Greef doesn’t yell at me,” Din said as he stood. She heard his voice shift as he replaced the helmet mid-sentence.

“Does he ever?” Cara asked as she accepted his outstretched hand and pulled herself up. The rapid ascent made her lightheaded and she ended up just a bit too close to him. The scent of him filled her nostrils and did nothing to clear her head.

He shrugged. “Once, I think.”

She watched as he moved toward the door and followed him unsteadily after a moment. He pulled it open and paused in the frame as she grabbed the edge of the door and leaned heavily on it.

“Goodbye, Mando.”

“Goodnight, Cara. I’ll come find you tomorrow.” It was a departure from their usual sign off, but today had been a day of departures. He turned to leave.

Cara let out a short, derisive snort as she began closing the door behind him. “No you won’t.”

_Pummel my heart_  
_I wanna be yours_  
_I wanna hear it all_  
_The sound of you_

It was far too early when a knock rattled her door, pulling her rudely out of a deep sleep. She grabbed her pillow and pressed it over her ear, trying to ignore the summons. But the knock came again.

“Go ‘way, Greef!” she yelled groggily. “I have a blaster an’ I know how t’ use it.”

“It’s not Greef,” came a familiar voice from behind the door.

Cara’s eyes sprang open and she sat bolt upright in her bed. Sunlight tried to press its way through the small cracks around the curtain to her only window, but the room remained mostly dark. She stumbled out of her bed, her legs getting tangled in the sheets. Pulling open the door, she squinted at him in the light of the hall; dim as it was, her apartment was still darker.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, sleep still clouding her mind.

“I told you I was coming,” he answered. “You didn’t believe me.”

Faintly, she remembered that conversation. She looked a back at him and felt more than saw his eyes travel down her body. Her thin sleeping shirt clung to her breasts and stopped just short of her hips; all she wore on her lower half were her panties. She hadn’t really thought about what she was wearing when she’d opened the door, and now she felt exposed, as if he could see more than just her legs.

She stepped back to let him enter and he breezed by her toward the window. As she shut the door he pulled back the curtain and she hissed, shading her eyes from the bright light.

“Fuck me, it’s bright out there,” she mumbled. After a solid minute of blinking her eyes mostly adjusted, but his armor seemed to pick up every spare sunbeam and reflect them back to her. Still squinting, she saw him inspect the now empty bottle of liquor still sitting on the table. Her head was pounding.

“Did some more drinking after I left?” he asked rhetorically.

Cara shrugged. “I was thirsty.”

“Do you do this every time?” Was she imagining it, or was there a note of concern in his voice? Right now, she couldn’t be sure of anything.

“No, not usually.”

“Last night was just special, then.”

She looked around the room, for clothes or shoes or anything to not look at him. “Something like that,” she mumbled. “What do you want?”

“I told you, your help,” he replied. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him bend down and pluck a pair of pants off the ground.

“I don’t really feel like it.” It was completely the truth, of course. Besides her splitting headache there was the task that he wanted her help with. She remembered that much. She walked over to him and made to grab the pants, but he pulled them out of her reach.

“You said you would,” he insisted.

Cara did not think this was true. At least, she couldn’t remember actually agreeing to it. “You know, holding my pants hostage isn’t really helping your case. Maybe I’ll just get back in bed, and you can keep the pants.”

Din considered this and his shoulders dropped slightly as he realized she was right. This time, he let her take the pants out of his hand. “It would mean a lot to me,” he said as she pulled them on. “Please?”

She scrunched her eyes closed and cursed him silently. That goddamn _please_. Did he know what he was asking her? _Why would he?_ another part of her argued. It wasn’t like she’d told him her feelings. She spent too much time trying to ignore them herself. Today would be good practice at pushing them further out of her mind.

“Fine,” she huffed, “but you have to go find me some caf and a painkiller.”

****

The market was too loud and too bright, though the caf had certainly taken the edge off. She had no idea what Din thought she could help with on this; she was certainly not a typical girl, and didn’t really understand what they liked and why. Some small evil part of her said that she should tell him to buy something that the girl was sure to not like, but she silenced it. She was being a friend. She could be mature about it.

It wasn’t an easy job, though, as apparently Din had no idea what he wanted to buy. Cara had expected to be asked to give input, not direct the purchase. She ended up quizzing him on a variety of girl-type things that she vaguely knew of. Did she like jewelry? Probably not. Flowers? He didn’t think so. Candy? Possibly. He claimed he wasn’t interested in buying those things for her anyway.

“What would _you_ like to receive as a gift?” he asked as they passed another stall, this one of delicate silk scarves.

Cara looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t think you should base this kinda thing off me…”

“Humor me.”

She sighed and thought for a minute as they walked. “Hmmm, well I could always use new boxing gloves… or a belt… or… I know!” she said suddenly, turning to him. “Everyone can use another knife.” Well, maybe that wasn’t true of everyone, but _she_ could always use another knife.

Din seemed to weigh this option, then nodded his head in agreement. “I know just the place.”

The shop was small and tucked down an out of the way street. Cara had not even known it was there despite the fact that she’d been living on Nevarro longer than she’d lived anywhere since she left Alderaan. Every once in a while Din would do something like this that reminded her that he had a long history here, much longer than hers.

To her surprise, there was someone else in the shop at that moment, keeping the lone worker busy. Cara preferred browsing in peace anyway. She followed Din to a display of all types of knives, from daggers to long boning blades. She could feel him watching expectantly as she perused the offerings.

“What kind of things does she like?” she asked, picking up one and then another in turn to inspect them.

“Nothing too fancy, I think. Something practical. But nice, too. It should be special.”

“Practical but special,” she murmured. He just would fall for someone like that. She picked up a small knife and suppressed a gasp. It had looked plain from a distance in the dim shop, but when she lifted it into the light hidden colors rippled across its surface. It shone with an iridescence that was truly stunning. “This one,” she breathed. She had to force herself to hand it to him.

“It’s perfect,” he agreed.

The salesman, having finished with the other customer, approached them eagerly. “What a beautiful knife for a beautiful lady! You are a lucky man, sir,” he said with a flash of white teeth.

“Oh, it’s not for me. I’m just helping him pick it out,” Cara told him.

The knife seller looked from her to Din and back again, his brow furrowed. “My apologies, I thought… never mind. Well, you have very good taste. Can I help you with anything else?”  
  
“Just this,” Din replied, holding out the knife.

The salesman took it and began to wrap it up. “Whoever this is for must be very special,” he said with a sidelong look at them.

“She is,” Din confirmed.

Cara didn’t mean to be melodramatic, but it kinda did feel like he was twisting that beautiful knife deep in her chest. She wondered what she had done to deserve this. She’d finally found someone who accepted her as she was, someone she could fight with and laugh with, someone who made her feel so incredibly complete… and he was in love with someone else. And despite this, she stuck around, willingly helped him pummel her heart into the ground. If she’d seen someone else doing this she would have said they were pathetic. Maybe she _was_ pathetic.

She barely registered as Din paid and they walked out of the shop into the bright street again. Her headache was threatening to come roaring back and she was in no mood for being upright.

“I better go pick up the kid,” he said.

“Left him with Greef again?”

He shook his head, surprising her. “No, the Armorer took him this morning.”

“You better watch out, he’s gonna come back with a tiny set of armor.”

Din laughed, and the sound went echoing through her head and rattling her insides. “See you tonight?” he asked.

Cara looked at him with a brow cocked. “You’re staying another night?” This was unprecidented.

“I have something else I have to take care of,” he answered cryptically.

Mysteries on mysteries, that man was sometimes. Of _course_ she wanted to see him later, but at the same time she didn’t know if her heart could take it. “See you tonight,” she said.

_Oh, my love is all undone_  
_I fall in deep, I fall in strong_  
_And you left me under your spell_  
_And I won't leave, you know too well_

She was honestly surprised when he knocked at her door that evening. Even after his promise that he’d be around, she expected him to take off. He actually had spent the day here. She wondered what he had done all afternoon.

“Din,” she greeted when she opened the door. “You’re still here.”

“Said I would be,” he answered.

Leaving the door open she turned around to go scrounge for a bottle of booze in her cabinet; she’d been hitting it hard and needed to restock. He followed her in and as she made to open the cabinet he put a hand on her arm to make her halt the action.

“Maybe not tonight,” he said. She turned to look at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. Another departure from routine, although they’d long since come off the rails of the typical. What was he up to? He shrugged. “Just figured we could use a night off. I’m surprised you can stomach the idea after your night last night.”

Cara snorted in a mirthless laugh. “Do you know me?”

“Fair,” he replied, tilting his head slightly.

“So if we’re not drinking, what are we doing?”

He shuffled slightly, looking suddenly uncertain. It was an odd demeanor for him, and she looked at him suspiciously. She reached out and pulled a half-empty bottle from the cabinet, and this time he didn't stop her.

“Sure you don’t want this?” she asked, holding it out to him.

He shook his head. “No, I’m good.”

“Suit yourself,” Cara said with a shrug. She tipped the bottle up to her lips and took a hearty swig, savoring the feeling of the warmth spreading down her throat. Stepping past the Mandalorian in front of her, she sauntered over to the room’s small table and set the bottle on it. She turned back to him, crossing her arms in front of her as she leaned on the table. Clearly he was here to say or do something, and she intended to wait him out.

Din walked a few steps toward her then stopped, pulling a smallish item out of a pouch on his hip. He looked at it for a moment, sparking her curiosity enough for her to push off the table and close the remaining gap between them. He held it out to her, and she looked at the package suspiciously. Didn’t the knife seller use similar wrappings?

“Take it,” he said, “it’s for you.”

If he was reacting to her dubious glare, he didn’t show it. Progressing to gifts was a new thing altogether, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there, especially after what she had learned recently. Her curiosity was getting the better of her, though. She took it from his hands and slowly unwrapped it to find… the knife that she had picked out earlier that day.

“I don’t understand,” she said, staring at the gift. None of this made any sense. “Didn’t you buy this for…”

“It’s for you,” he repeated. “It was always for you.”

She looked up at him and blinked several times as the implication of what he had just said dawned on her. “You _asshole!_ ” she gasped. Clearly, he was not expecting this reaction because he froze. “You said… when I asked…” she stammered, her brain failing to find the words that she wanted.

“You thought I was talking about someone else?” he asked, confusion obvious in his voice.

“Of course I did! What were you thinking?”

Din crossed his arms in front of his chest defensively. “ _I_ thought you knew and were playing along.”

“How was I supposed to know?!” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

“Why else do you think I come back here every month?” he shot back, his voice getting louder. “It’s not to see Greef!”

Cara was momentarily speechless as the weight of everything he had said hit her. The girl who he’d been speaking so rapturously about, who he clearly was interested in being _more_ than friends with… was her? How had she not seen that? She shook her head, still trying to process what had gone on. “Why now?” she asked, trying to make sense of this.

Din sighed. “It’s been a year, Cara. Of doing this, whatever _this_ is. I don’t know, I thought I would do something nice. Apparently I’ve managed to muck it up spectacularly.”

The way his shoulders slumped tugged on her heartstrings and made her want to run over and wrap her arms around him, but goddamn it she wasn’t done being mad about this. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “My lack of enthusiasm when we were talking wasn’t a clue?”

“I don’t know, I assumed that you just wanted to remain friends,” he answered, sounding unsure of himself. “If you thought I was talking about someone else…”

“I was trying to be supportive, Din. But I’ve been miserable this whole time.”  
  
“You were? Why?”

She stared at him in disbelief. After all of this, he still didn’t know how she felt about him? “Because I’m hopelessly in love with you, you idiot!” she yelled. Now it was his turn to stare at her wordlessly. “I’ve spent a year trying to pretend I’m not,” she added quietly.

“A year?” he replied in shock. “So when I left the first time, and you said you were staying…”

She huffed and gave a short nod. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you come with me?” The tone of his voice was full of hurt and confusion and regret.

“I don’t know, it was a confusing time,” she mumbled lamely. “I thought I needed stability or something.”

“What about all the other times? Every time I suggested that you join us, you shut me down.”

“You know I can’t leave,” she protested. “I owe Greef.”  
  
He scoffed at this statement. “Maybe that was true six months ago, but not anymore. You’ve long since paid that debt. Now it just sounds like you’re making excuses.”

“I was afraid, ok? Afraid of that kind of commitment. Afraid of what that would mean,” she replied forcefully, the words spilling out of her. She didn’t know if she would have been able to even articulate them before this moment.

“I wasn’t asking you to marry me, Cara,” he shot back.

“No, just to help you raise your adopted kid.”

“That’s not…” he began, but she cut him off.

“I know,” she said gently, sighing, “but sometimes that’s what it felt like. Don’t get me wrong, I love the kid. But it’s a lot, y’know?”

Din looked at the ground, nodding. “Yeah, I know.” They were both silent for a few moments, both trying to digest all of this new information. Eventually he shook his head and looked up at her. “I just don’t know how we got our wires so crossed.”  
  
Cara chuckled softly. “We’re both terrible at talking about feelings. And apparently fucking blind.”

The joke seemed to diffuse the tension in the room, even if it wasn’t quite a joke. Suddenly, the whole situation seemed absurd and hilarious. Din started laughing, which stoked her own laughter, until they were both nearly in tears. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, still shaking his head. She was still giggling as he took a slow step toward her. He reached up to push a lock of hair back from her forehead and she inhaled too quickly at the contact, her breath catching in her throat.

“I understand if coming with us is too much right now,” he said softly as his finger trailed lightly along the side of her face, “but I’m hoping we can have more than what we have now?”

Cara nodded breathlessly. “Yeah, me too. But maybe we can take it slow? One step at a time?”  
  
“Of course. What does the first step look like?” he asked as his other hand came to rest lightly on her hip, gently pulling their bodies closer together.

“I don’t actually know,” she replied with a smile and a small laugh. “I don’t know how… this works.

“What, you mean this thing?” he said, the smirk obvious in his voice, as he removed his hands from her and placed them on either side of his helmet. “I guess this is the first step.”

Her eyes went wide as he started lifting slowly upward. Almost of its own volition, her hand shot upward and gripped his wrist tightly, arresting his progress. “What are you doing?!”

“Close your eyes,” he told her softly. “Trust me.”

What had she been thinking about trust falls yesterday? Swallowing hard, Cara closed her eyes and let her hand slide off his wrist and drop down onto his shoulder. She felt his arms move as he pulled the helmet off and heard the soft _clunk_ when he set it down on the table next to them.

“Cara,” he breathed, little more than a whisper.

It sent chills down her spine. She’d heard his voice without the helmet many times now, but he’d never been facing her. It was both achingly familiar and totally new. They were standing so close now, every breath shared between them. He slid one hand behind her waist and splaying across her lower back, his touch hot through the thin fabric of her shirt. They stood there, hardly moving, and for a moment she wondered what would happen. Was this it, the first step? Or was he waiting for her to do something? Now that they were here, like this, it wasn’t enough. She needed more. She needed him.

Slowly she reached her hand toward his face, figuring that he could stop her if he wanted. But he didn’t. Her fingers encountered the bristly hair of a short beard and she almost started in surprise. All this time, he’d had a beard and she never knew it. She realized that whenever she pictured him it was just the helmet, as if that was his face. Her fingers wandered, brushing across skin and hair, and slowly a new image began to take shape in her mind. A square jaw, high cheekbones, the crinkled sides of smiling eyes, an aquiline nose, full lips curved into a wide grin…

“So what do you think?” he asked after she touched nearly every inch of his face.

Cara’s lips twisted into a smirk. “You’ll do,” she teased. Her fingers lingered on his lips and all she could think about was how desperately she wanted to kiss them.

Din seemed to be having similar thoughts. He slid a hand behind her neck and gently pulled her head closer to his. Their faces were only inches away and she could feel his warm breath caressing her skin. But then he stopped, like he wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure that he wanted this, or wasn’t sure that she did? The idea that he was having second thoughts was at odds with the way he was still clinging to her, tugging her body against the plates of his beskar like he could pull her through them. She knew she asked to take things slow—even though that was certainly not typical for her—but this was glacial.

In one decisive movement she closed the gap between them, pressing her lips hungrily against his. The word _slow_ could not be used to describe their actions. She pushed against his mouth hard and fast, as if making up for all that lost time in one go. Her tongue slid along his lower lip and his mouth opened wider as he returned the kiss in kind, sucking and pulling and sending his own tongue in to slip around the inside of her mouth. His hand on her neck pulled her steadily toward him like she might slip away if he let go, his thumb stretching up to rub along her jaw, as his other hand slide further down her back inexorably toward her ass. When he found it, he squeezed tightly, grinding her hips against his own, and she moaned into the kiss.

Without thinking she pushed him backward until they bumped into the table, her hands moving rapidly around his waist, searching for a way through the thick padding under his armor. In the mean time his hands had slipped under her shirt and were pushing suggestively into the top of her waistband. The feel of his hand on her bare skin further stoked the fire within her, and she reached down to grab him through the rapidly tightening region of his pants. He groaned at her touch and pushed back against her, rotating their positions so that she was practically sitting on the table. She snaked her fingers up through his hair and pulled him even deeper into the kiss. Her lungs were burning, starved for air, and finally it got to the point where she couldn’t ignore it anymore. They broke out of the kiss, chests heaving as they both gasped for air, still wrapped in each others arms.

“So much for taking it slow,” he managed between breaths.

Cara huffed out a laugh. “If we weren’t taking it slow we’d both be naked by now.”

Din made a small strangled sound in his throat that he clearly tried to suppress, which only made her laugh more. She wrapped both of her hands behind his neck and pulled him into a brief, chaste kiss. It was almost ridiculous in comparsion to how they had just acted. Still breathing somewhat heavily, she leaned her forehead against his, reveling in even that simple contact.

“Please tell me you’re not leaving tomorrow,” she breathed. She didn’t want to dare to hope, but she was failing miserably.

She felt him smile. “I could possibly be convinced otherwise. You have plans?”

“Does spending as much time as possible with your shiny ass count as a plan?”

He laughed at that, a low chuckle that reverberated through her head and sent warmth spreading through her body. “Can I bring my kid? Greef’s gonna get tired of being a babysitter.”

“You better,” she replied, sealing it with another kiss.

She was grinning so hard that her dimples were starting to hurt, but she couldn’t stop. For the first time in a very long time, she was utterly, blissfully happy. Everything was going to change, and she couldn’t wait for it to do so.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally thought this would be way more angsty, but in the end it came out sillier than I expected? Maybe that's just because I knew he was talking about Cara the whole time, idk. But I do love how it turned out and I hope you do too. Just another idiots to lovers story, lol.
> 
> Thank you to all my supporters who leave kudos and comments, they mean so much to me and always make my day. I'd love to hear what you think about this one!


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